Developing Boomerang Mothers

When she heard about ComeBack Kids, she sent in her résumé and was soon hired for a position similar to her previous one.

At Deloitte & Touche, women are also offered up to five years of unpaid leave with no health benefits. Through its Personal Pursuits program, which began last year, women are also given the option of "kitchen table" work that they can do while they are out of the office. That gives them a chance to keep their skills sharp and their toes in the Deloitte water.

As part of a pilot program, Deepa Varadarajan, formerly a manager in the audit practice, was offered the leave when her twin sons were born prematurely in 2004. "I jumped at it," Varadarajan says. "This was a way for me to get first-hand information about what's happening in the market on projects while taking this sabbatical."

The company has paid for credentials she needed and picked a senior manager to be her mentor.

The new programs have already spawned their own jargon. Instead of taking leave, women "off-ramp." When ready to work, they "on-ramp."

"We've all seen the statistics about who dropped out or off-ramped, and it's very hard for them to get back in," says Cathy Benko, national managing director for Deloitte's initiative to retain and advance women. "I'm one of the few career moms in my son's sixth-grade class. I talk to the moms, and they're looking to get back in and now they can't."

Lehman Brothers began its program last year, calling it Encore. "We've spent a lot of time and money recruiting at college campuses and the MBA level. We pay premiums to convince women to move laterally," says Anne Erni, Lehman's managing director and chief diversity officer. "Why not formally recognize women who have off-ramped as a fourth legitimate pool of talent?"

So far, the programs are small. Goldman Sachs has hired about 10 women through its program and Lehman has hired about 20. Deloitte and PWC's extended leaves are open only to women who have received outstanding reviews and have permission from their manager or partner.

The Center for Work-Life Policy, a New York research organization, found that two-thirds of women who left work to raise children want to reenter professional life but think that companies are reluctant to hire them, or will offer them less-stimulating work than they had before.

Most of the women who take leave have every intention of returning to work, but only 74 percent were able to do so, according to the 2005 study.

"We have, over the years, had that concern about losing women," says Billie Williamson, gender equity and flexibility strategy leader at Ernst & Young, which sponsored the study. "But part of this is really helping women feel confident they can continue to succeed at the firm."